The author of Vermeer's Hat shares "a dizzying and exhilarating journey" through 800 years of Chinese history and national identity (New Statesman).China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century and has maintained them ever since—through the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Republic, the Occupation, and Communism. Yet China has never been alone in the world. I...

China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate current borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the 13th century, and despite the passing of one Imperial dynasty to the next, it has maintained them for the eight centuries since. Even the European colonial powers at the height of their power could not move past coastal enclaves. Thus, China remained China through the Ming, the Qing, the Republic, the Occupation, and Communism.But, despite the d...

This practical guide is written for beginners who want a home that feels safer, calmer, and easier to manage without depending on a professional for every small task. It breaks a familiar problem into clear actions, explains what to check before starting, and keeps the focus on progress that can be seen and repeated. You do not need a workshop full of expensive equipment or years of experience. You need a sensible order of operations, realistic expectations, and a willingness to learn one ...

Bloomsbury presents Vermeer's Hat by Timothy Brook, read by Nathan OsgoodIn this critical darling Vermeer's captivating and enigmatic paintings become windows that reveal how daily life and thought-from Delft to Beijing--were transformed in the 17th century, when the world first became global.A Vermeer painting shows a military officer in a Dutch sitting room, talking to a laughing girl. In another canvas, fruit spills from a blue-and-white porcela...

In a public square in Beijing in 1904, multiple murderer Wang Weiqin was executed before a crowd of onlookers. He was among the last to suffer the extreme punishment known as lingchi. Called by Western observers “death by a thousand cuts” or “death by slicing,” this penalty was reserved for the very worst crimes in imperial China.A unique interdisciplinary history, Death by a Thousand Cuts is the first book to explore the history, iconography, and legal contexts of Chinese...

In 221 BC, the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia.The Qin and Han constitute the “classical period” of Chinese history—a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the W...

The Tang dynasty is often called China’s “golden age,” a period of commercial, religious, and cultural connections from Korea and Japan to the Persian Gulf, and a time of unsurpassed literary creativity. Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in which the empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Chinese rule, painting and ceramic arts flourished, women played a major role both as rulers and in the economy, and China produced its finest lyric poets in Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Du Fu....

As increasing attention is drawn to globalization, questions arise about the fate of "the nation," a political and social unit that for centuries has seemed the common-sense way to organize the world. In Nation Work, Timothy Brook and André Schmid draw together eight essays that use historical examples from Asian countries--China, India, Korea, and Japan--to enrich our understandings of the origin and growth of nations.Asia provides fertile ground for this inquiry, the volume argue...

In recent years, most of the economies of Eastern Asia have been absorbed into global capitalism. Capitalism has transformed these economies, but the process has not been one-way. The cultures of Eastern Asia have in turn shaped how capitalism organizes labor, capital, and markets in ways that could not have been anticipated even ten years ago. On the basis of rich empirical analyses of East and Southeast Asia, and with theoretical insights from different approaches in the social sciences,...

Contemporary discussions of international relations in Asia tend to be tethered in the present, unmoored from the historical contexts that give them meaning. Sacred Mandates, edited by Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes, redresses this oversight by examining the complex history of inter-polity relations in Inner and East Asia from the thirteenth century to the twentieth, in order to help us understand and develop policies to address challenges in the regio...

When good friends Lyndsey and Aiden wake up married in Vegas, everything is chaos.Naturally, Lyndsey wants a divorce from the Ice Hockey star after her drunken mistake, but Aiden isn’t quite ready to call it quits. Knowing that he needs to stay married to gain his parent’s inheritance, Aiden convinces Lyndsey to join him at his home in Texas - and fake being the perfect wife to his family.But both get more than they bargained for when news of their wedding ...

She was the quietest Tyler of Tyler Township—and for good reason.They might not have much, but rabble-rousing Tylers loved—and took care of—each other. Pip was a Tyler, through and through. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for her family.After a terrible experience as a teenager, Pip retreated to the safety of her family’s ranch. When her sister married the sheriff of Masterson County, Pip’s intentional isolation from the world ended.S...